I Know You
by Kaitipoola
Summary: A brief outline of Alice's story, up until the point where she meets Jasper. Alice's POV. Another one of my calming projects, please read and review.


I Know You

**A/N: I had a song stuck in my head the other day. It was that I Know You song from Sleeping Beauty—if you don't know what I'm talking about, there is something wrong with you. Anyway, I instantly thought of Alice and Jasper, and this story built off from there.**

_It was the first time I had ever felt unhappy about being alone, because I'd had no memories of a family in the life before I was changed. _

That much I knew: that I had been _changed._ For even as I had woken up alone in that forest, I knew that I had not always been so strong, so fast, so graceful and beautiful.

So cold.

I didn't remember anything about my past. Whenever I tried, it was like a humongous wall of black was blocking my thoughts. There was only thing that I did remember clearly, and that was a name.

Alice.

I knew who I was, but I couldn't figure out what had happened to me, or what I had been doing before it happened. It was frustrating.

The first real shock, though, was the _hunger. _

It was not the kind of hunger I had ever felt before—a fierce emptiness that I felt not only in my stomach, but all over me… a hunger that filled my entire being. The second shock was easily the one that had disturbed me the most—the one that disturbed me still.

I couldn't sleep.

No matter how hard I tried, I could never get tired or drowsy in the least. I didn't even feel deprived of energy, even though the hunger grew steadily worse. I wandered for days: until I came upon a fox in the woods, and realized exactly what I had been hungry _for_.

Shock? Yes.

Though drinking that fox's blood kept the strange longing at bay, it didn't taste right. It sustained me, yes, but it never fully satiated my hunger. Still I had spent my time boldly wandering the forests and wilderness, and receiving the surprises that came to me:

My skin shines in the sun. I can't die. I can see the future.

This was the one that caused me the most delight. I would begin to feel a strange sensation, tingles trailing down my spine. My eyes would become unfocused, enveloped in a deep mist. And then I would see things. I would see myself running in the wild, I would see myself hunting. Some of the things I saw confused me: sometimes I saw myself alone, and sometimes I saw myself with other people: beautiful, strong people, people like me.

The first time that I neared a village was the first time I saw myself drinking from an old woman. I saw how wonderful it tasted, and I was eager to try this new, delicious kind of blood. Not satisfied with the lack of flavor in the blood of common animals, I began to enter the villages and towns at night and take my feed from humans. It was like feasting after living on dirt, and for a time I lived happily.

But then I began to have visions.

I saw myself running truly wild, becoming a ferocious animal that brought nothing but fear and death to mankind. I saw the terrible guilt I would feel, and the self-hatred. That was when I decided to give up feeding on the humans. It was a hard decision to make, but I knew it wouldn't be so hard if I stayed away from the towns and returned to living in the wilderness.

It had been a couple of years then, since I had become a vampire, and I was not as dependant on blood as I had been. I was a little wiser now, and even before the visions I had imagined that my prey were real people with feelings and thoughts, not just little toys to be taken at my pleasure. I didn't want to kill them anymore. I didn't want to be a murderer.

A monster.

That night I made my decision. It was the first night that I saw Jasper. I saw a man, a blood-drinker like me. He was tall and had skin like mine, honey blond hair, and from the odd bronze color of his eyes you could see that he had fed on humans in the past month but he had recently been feeding on animals. I saw him smile softly at me, and reach out tentatively to brush my cheek with pale fingers.

He was the most beautiful, marvelous creature I had ever seen. I spent weeks pondering this insistent vision, wondering what I should do about it. There was nothing else that I could think about, other than his flawless face, his sweet smile.

I was obsessed.

Through the years, I had figured a few things about my visions: that they could change, and if they didn't change, they were relatively close at hand. The visions were different now, though. I saw this vampire and I living together. I saw us becoming closer, and I saw us falling in love with eachother.

Why couldn't it all just happen!

I never saw the man, of course, during my treks in the woods, and I began to wonder whether I was doing something wrong. Should I go to the nearest town? Would I find him there?

Immediately I knew that this couldn't happen, if I came even close to a human I would kill it for sure. But still those sweet, tantalizing visions visited me daily, and I began to feel lonely.

_It was the first time I had ever felt unhappy about being alone, because I'd had no memories of a family in the life before I was changed._

This brought a new emptiness in me, and my existence began to feel meaningless. I stopped sleeping in a different state every night, and settled in a forest in Oregon. Every day, things felt worse to me. I began to hate the blood that I drank, and I began to hate myself. I had ceased to care much about myself, so it seemed like I had little to survive for, and nothing to care about in this world.

Except him.

_Always except him. _

Never, at least in my vampire life, had I felt any compassion for anything or anyone other than myself. So this new feel of emotion on someone else's behalf was incredibly strong to me. Sometimes I would laugh at myself because though I knew I must find him eventually, I hadn't even met him yet.

This brings us to the present, or at least the point when I met Jasper.

One particularly cloudy day, I was lounging against the trunk of a sugar maple tree—the topmost branch supporting my weight—and singing softly to myself, a song I had heard while living near the towns. I didn't feel any strong passion for singing, but of course I was bored most of the time, and my voice was high and lovely.

Seeing as I was a vampire, my senses were spectacular, and even as I sang I could hear, feel and smell something moving a couple of miles away. I didn't stop the singing, but I listened intently.

The creature was very heavy, but it treaded lightly.

And _quickly. _

Mother of God, it was faster than me!

The scent was strange, glorious but unfamiliar… But—oh, no—it was running away from me, in the opposite direction.

I stopped singing and sighed in resignation, curious but knowing that I couldn't overtake it, whatever it was. I leaned back against the trunk of the tree, absentmindedly shredding a leaf.

And then I had a vision.

My whole body went rigid; my dainty fingers clenched reflexively around my palm. A haze fell over my eyes, the forest around me dimmed into a wash of color: then the mists rolled in.

Little tingles ran along my spine, from my neck to my hips. I stopped breathing, and concentrated on pulling the image from the back of my mind. When it came, the scene was as clear and precise as reality could ever be.

_The vampire was eying me warily. He stared at me for a good length of time, and then suddenly, as if I had passed some sort of test, his body relaxed. He stood up, the slightest trace of a smile on his face…_

Suddenly, his profile was slipping out of my focus, beginning to fade away. Desperately I clung to the vision, and I could barely make out his lips moving, but I couldn't hear a sound coming out.

And then I was back in the tree, feeling dazed but incredibly triumphant. Of course I had instantly recognized the man. Now I understood the heaviness, the scent, the speed. And I knew that I must find this vampire. There was no question.

None.

Having made my decision, I leapt out of the tree. As soon as I hit the ground, my nostrils were widened and I was running. I was running as fast as I could, and, dammit, I wasn't going fast enough to catch up with him.

His delicious scent was full in my nostrils, my short hair was swept back in the wind, and I could feel the ground vibrating slightly with my steps.

I hoped that once he caught my scent, he would slow down in order to confront me. Had he ever seen another vampire before, I wondered? Would he think I was as beautiful as I thought he was—I did have short hair, after all?

I could hear him moving a couple of miles ahead of me, but I was gaining slowly. He wasn't as fast as I had thought, or maybe he _was _slowing down. This thought made me smile, and my muscles were tight enough to spring with anticipation.

Then suddenly, his trail shifted. He was swinging around…running towards me! But he wasn't running so fast anymore; his step seemed speculative, and a little worried.

I was curious enough to burst, but I withdrew, slowly, pulling back into the shade of a tree and the protection of the cool forest.

My instincts were filling me with a strange caution, dampening all of the glorious excitement. Visions could change, I thought nervously to myself. What if this blood-drinker turned out to be my enemy?

But soon these thoughts ceased, because he was there, only five yards away from me. My eyes fell into his, and I could swear that, for a moment, my heart stuttered in my chest.

His reaction differed slightly from mine. His eyes narrowed slightly, and he stepped forward into a crouch. I began to back away, my feet finding the surest path in the forest even without my eyes to guide them.

But then, I stopped. I remembered all of the things I had seen in my visions, how careful and tender he was. I couldn't let this chance at a life pass me by, for I had a feeling that I would never get it again. I would live my existence out silently, qith no companions or friends.

Alone.

I couldn't let that happen. Hesitantly, I started forward again.

This time he was the one to back away, but I put my hands up, palm first, quickly in a sign of surrender. I sat, gracefully I thought, a few feet away from him. His eyes met mine doubtfully once again, and then they changed, taking on a searching look. I remembered my vision, and concentrated on passing whatever test he could give me. But my concentration ebbed away as I looked at his face. He was…I didn't know what he was. But as I held his gaze, I felt something move in my frozen body.

I felt magic.

Slowly, the vampire eased out of the crouch, his body relaxing. He edged a little closer, and then sat, his posture mirroring mine. We looked at eachother, both of us expecting the other to speak first.

Waiting.

I took the risk, and spoke to him. "Hello," I said quietly, and added, trying to be polite, "My name is Alice." He smiled. "Hello, Alice. My name is Jasper."

His name was Jasper!

With his name, I felt a profound sense of recognition. Jasper, his name was Jasper. I adored his name, it just seemed to fit.

_Jasper. _

Jasper's eyes were confused. "Do you…recognize me?" he asked calmly. I nodded with as confident a smile as I could muster. "I know you," I murmuered.

He didn't seem as if this explanation satisfied him. "You know me," he repeated. Suddenly, I felt the strangest sense of confusion and curiosity, completely out of place. My brow furrowed.

He looked as if he could read my mind. "Hmm," he said. "I'll promise to explain if you do."

I smiled slightly, taking in Jasper's strange, beautiful eyes, and rapturously observing his hair, moving in the wind. It reminded me of sunshine. Jasper seemed to be pleased at something. Our eyes met, and he bit his lip, looking embarrassed. This left me more curious than ever.

"I promise," I promised, inclining my head. I was sure he could see the amusement in my eyes. I added, "And thank you, Jasper." Once again, I thought he sensed that I was thanking him for more than introducing himself.

He nodded, so beautiful. Involuntarily, I touched his hand with my cool fingers.

And even though I knew nothing about him other than his name, even though he didn't know, as I did, that we were meant to be together—in the that moment when I touched him, I felt a happiness and a sense of peace that I had never felt before.

I was complete.


End file.
